Gilchrist: 'Commercial suicide' for Australian Cricket if Warner & Co skips BBL for other T20 leagues

Adam Gilchrist believes it would be “commercial suicide” for Cricket Australia to allow their contracted players to play in the UAE or South Africa T20 Leagues that will clash with the BBL in January.

Speaking on SEN Radio on Wednesday, Gilchrist was discussing a report on Australian who said David Warner was seeking an exemption from CA to play in the UAE league in January. Warner is contracted to CA, but Australia had no international cricket in the final three weeks of January following the completion of a three-Test series with South Africa on January 8.

“It’s a big kicker, no, maybe a step towards being signed to a club before or over a country for the main amount of cricket you play,” Gilchrist said. “I think it’s almost commercial suicide for them to let a player like him go head-to-head with their own competitors.

“They can’t force David Warner to play in the BBL. I understand that. But to let him go, or any other player, don’t just pick Warner, because there will be other players on the radar, that’s all part of this, I think, dominance. global that this IPL franchise started to create.

“David Warner, again using him as an example, we can’t question his commitment to Australian cricket over the years. He’s carved out one of those great careers. So if he goes into the sunset and says, ‘sorry Australian cricket, I’m done. , I’ll just be a gun to hire for my Indian franchise team in various tournaments’, you can’t question him about that. That’s his prerogative and he’s doing everything he needs to, to get profiles and get that kind of market value. come in and start making a fuss in a place that would be very challenging.”

“Perhaps it was the first instance where David Warner didn’t sign at all with Cricket Australia, he was just playing for a match fee”

Adam Gilchrist

The hope is that Test Australia players will be free to play in the BBL after the South Africa Test, but Warner has no contract with the BBL club, and has not played in the competition since 2013. Players signed by CA do not have to play in the BBL as part of the agreement. BBL clubs negotiate with Australia-based players individually as there is no domestic draft or auction for the tournament. The club has not signed the likes of Warner, Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Cameron Green or Steven Smith in recent years to avoid wasting wages on these players when they are not available to play on international duty. But they will be available during the final three weeks of the upcoming season.

Warner was contracted to Delhi Capitals in the IPL and their co-owner, GMR Group, now owns Dubai Capitals, which is one of the teams in the new UAE league. [ILT20]. ILT20 is scheduled to run from January 6 to February 12. BBL is scheduled to run from December 13 to February 4.

While not required to play on BBL, Warner will require a no-objection certificate [NOC] from CA to be allowed to play in another league. CA issues NOC for players to play in IPL.

Gilchrist feels that the move by which Warner, or any other player, is allowed to play in another league could completely change the face of how international players are signed.

CA is already up to that challenge with Team David, who tops the Australian T20I team. David is signed to Hobart Hurricanes in the BBL but does not have a state contract in the domestic system, which gives him the freedom to play in PSL even though the tournament falls during the Australian domestic season when the Marsh Cup and Sheffield Shield are played. There have been informal discussions within CA’s high-performance unit about how contracts will work in the future to allow T20 specialists, such as David, to play in leagues around the world while being able to represent Australia without losing significant franchise revenue potential.

Gilchrist: “There will be other players on the radar, it’s all part of this, I think, global dominance that this IPL franchise is starting to create”•Getty Images

Gilchrist suggested that if Warner played in the UAE, it could reshape how Australian representatives are contracted in Australia.

“Perhaps it was the first instance where David Warner didn’t sign for Cricket Australia at all, he was just playing for a match fee,” Gilchrist said. “He went and played whatever he wanted but said, ‘I’m available for every Test game, for every one-day international, every T20 international’ for example. ‘I’ll be there for you in the national colours, but other than that I’ll play in my club, my franchise cricket wherever I want’, knowing that neither of those major tournaments will clash with international cricket. It might be an opportunity to explore it and see how it looks. It’s a tough one.”

Gilchrist’s comments follow Ricky Ponting and Usman Khawaja’s concerns last week about the BBL being left behind as overseas players favor other leagues like ILT20 in the January window due to bigger contracts for shorter commitments. Only a handful of players in the new overseas BBL draft are set to earn more than US$200,000. Some of the top overseas players who have been nominated for the draft may not even be recruited by the BBL team considering some of them tend to only commit to the December BBL before playing in the UAE or South Africa.

There are 70 Britons nominated for the BBL draft on Wednesday, with Liam Livingstone and Alex Hales two of the biggest names among them. However both will likely only be available for the first half of the BBL tournament.

Alex Malcolm is Associate Editor at ESPNcricinfo

#Gilchrist #Commercial #suicide #Australian #Cricket #Warner #skips #BBL #T20 #leagues